Couch to 5k Revisited

After having fell off the gym wagon and missed a week or so after the holidays, I've been getting back into going to the gym. This time, I'm not being super religious about going every day. I think that was hard to do and so then I felt bad when I skipped days. Now I'm trying to go every other day and if I get more visits in, all the better. Also, I'm revisiting the couch to 5k program. I don't know why I forgot about it but I really love the approach of increments of running that get you running from zero to 5k - which is about 3 miles. 

I knew I couldn't run 5k on the treadmill but also didn't have to start at the beginning so picked week three and did that last week. Also the program suggests you run every other day and give your body a day of rest in between.  So, being Monday, I looked up my new routine for the week. It's 3 min, then 5 min then 3 min with walking in between. Sounds doable. 

I did find what helped me last week was watching an action movie I had downloaded onto my iPad, No Escape. There really wasn't much plot or dialogue and it was about a family stuck in a Southeast Asia country when a coup occurs and all westerners are being shot. So basically it's the family running from one scenario to the next trying to flee the country. I found I had trouble focusing at the beginning when the characters were being set up, but otherwise it was a good adrenaline rush to spur on my running. I was running along side them in a way. 

I've been trying different things for entertainment.  Listening to music, different types of podcasts, watching tv shows and different types of movies, reading books, flipping through magazines, even doing nothing but just the machine. At first I thought the gym was a great way to catch up on watching stuff with subtitles. But I really need something that holds your attention. A movie or show or podcast I'd be focused on at home or in the car (podcasts only - I don't watch tv while driving of course) I have more trouble focusing on when I workout. I have been reading a book but can only do it on one machine - the reclining bike. I think I need my back stable to read because even the other bikes, I can't read a book well while riding. Well, I'll keep experimenting.

Speaking of experiment, I tried something yesterday and even though it didn't turn out fabulous I'm super excited. I made sweet red bean buns. I first discovered them when I was in grad school, tutoring at a Korean family's house. The mother would bring out snacks for us and one day it was the red bean buns. It's basically a sweet roll but with a wonderful paste like filling in the middle. Fast forward to moving to Boston and working next to china town and I found them again. I even went to a bunch of bakeries and figured out which one was my favorite. Apparently there are sweet and savory variations. 

Fast forward to me experimenting with making pickled vegetables to put into salads and dishes and to use up my root vegetables. Side note, I experimented with different vinegars and spices and so far I've definitely ruled out using apple cider. It's really strong and not in a good way. I had bought a bunch of cucumbers (I like getting my vegetables at the seconds table of my local farmers store - they are often good vegetables, reduced price and I'm helping them from being thrown away and wasted - win win). Well, I made tahboli with a tahini dressing which was good. And for the other pickle I thought, I could pickle this along with some carrots and it reminded me of the Vietnamese sandwiches I'd get in china town, Bahn mi I think they are called. Well, and that reminded me of the sweet red bean buns and since I was exploring making Asian food which I hadn't really ventured into too much before, I thought, hey, I bet I could make red bean buns. 

After a little research I realized it would probably be easy to make the paste instead of buying it and gave it a go yesterday. I had soaked the adzuka beans then cooked them forever. I forget how I have a hard time cooking dry beans. Luckily I figured out instead of pushing through a sieve, I don't have a food mill, that I could just use my hand blender. And ta da - good red bean paste. A little butter sugar and orange zest and it was perfect. I made the dough according to the recipe but half my ingredients were coming from the freezer and I didn't let them warm up. So the dough didn't really rise well. Even so, I ate over half the rolls yesterday. They were so good even though the rolls weren't as light and airy. But I can work on that. I think I've found a new staple for my repertoire. Oh and on a side note, I've found a trick to making cookies for one.  I make a batch, then roll them in balls and put them on a cookie sheet, freeze them and then transfer them to a bag. This way you can bake a few at a time and are not stuck eating a bunch of cookies quickly before they go stale. It worked for an almond meal chocolate chip cookie and my favorite gingerbread chewy molasses cookie. Still experimenting. 

Snowball fight workout

Last week I was pretty good about getting to the gym most days. On Sunday, I had to forgo my morning gym visit since I was visiting a bunch of folks. First up was swinging by my god children's house.  Maggie's learned how to use a sewing machine so we made some "decorative" pillows. Aka accent pillows. And then I got a slice of suburban mom life and went to Cameron's basketball game. I realized, sitting in the bleachers, I had never watched a basketball game with such small players. They were so cute and you had everything from the kid that kind of paid attention but would dawdle with his hands in his pockets, to some kids who had mad skills and would sprint back and forth across the court. 

When we got back, we had a pretty long snow ball fight. We had teams and each had territories with the sidewalk to the front door being the river you couldn't step in. So basically dodge ball but with snowballs. It was me and Maggie against Cameron and a friend of his. Except Maggie didn't like playing so she was my assistance and would just make me snowballs and it was me against the two boys. It was a ton of fun and we made sure no one was aiming for the head. 

Then I headed off before the Sunday football game celebrations, up to Nh to dads. It wasn't until the next day I felt the good ache in my muscles, like from a proper workout. My forearm and biceps in my throwing arm and interestingly my inner thighs from shuffling side to side and twisting to dodge snow balls. My hands where still black from my black suede gloves I was wearing. They are finally clean and back to normal. So anyways, nice surprise I got my work out in after all by way of a fun snow ball fight on a warm sunny winter day. 

Also, I have to say I'm really getting into finishing things up.  There is something about buying something new, unpacking it when you get home and enjoying the newness of the thing. But since I've really cut back on any discretionary spending, I'm finally finding a similar quasi high when I purposefully finish something. I've been trying to use up products from around the house that I had decluttered from my day to day but hate to throw out. Like cleaning products or face lotions. Also, this year I'm focusing on my recreational "hobbies" and it felt so good to clean out my playlist on Netflix and other streaming devices. Yes, the shows all sound interesting and I can still watch them, but if I have too many in a list, I never find anything I'm interested in watching at that moment. Often the novelty has worn off. I took stock of what kind of shows I feel good about watching and now have been working through my abridged list. I watch documentaries in the morning while working in the kitchen and just finished one on the roosevelts. Felt good taking it off the list. And I just finished another book last night. I really need to put a dent in my library of unread or unfinished books. 

This last weekend, my step mother was picking out a new sweater pattern to knit and I was checking out all my favorites I had saved on ravelry over the years. I had over 500 and mixed in with patterns I still liked were old ones where my style preference had changed or I had learned what looks good on me, and what doesn't. I cleaned out the list over a few days and am now down to half the number and it feels so good. I'm sure I can get the number down even further, but it was a good first pass. 

Basically, I'm surprised that I was able to rewire my brain to get the little dopamine hits from finishing and using what I already have, instead of finding and buying new stuff. I think I've gotten more creative too as I try to find new ways to use things I have but don't really have a use for - like an extra lamp. Or for figuring out projects to use up hobby collections. Like my huge fabric stash. It takes up so much room and isn't easy to find a good home. So I've been trying to use up the fabric. I've also discovered I can kind of sew but it's not a favorite hobby of mine, more like a useful skill. There have definitely been studies about the positive impact on mood when finishing a project and now I've turned a bunch of stuff into projects and try to finish one every day or so. Tasks don't seem to do the same job - like doing your dishes every day. Well, back to work on a project so I can try to get it done today. 

Gym Truth

I haven't posted an update for awhile on my effort to create an exercise habit. Mostly because I fell off the wagon a bit. I was good and packed workout clothes for Christmas at moms and even went for a run. But only went once and then it got too cold. Then I was back home and one excuse after another, I was so far out of the habit it became weeks. The last couple of days I kept getting close to going to the gym but I kept putting it off because I had momentum and wanted to work on other projects. I want thinking of posting anything and then I reminded myself that I didn't want to be that kind of person that only posted the good stuff and not the whole picture. 

Today, I had just gotten off a call with nick and mom and had planned to go to the gym right after. My internal dialogue popped up and started trying to talk me into holding off to work on something else. But then my "good" internal voice popped up (it had been quiet for awhile, or maybe just didn't have any strong arguments) and made a good argument that I want to remember. If I go to the gym when I have the energy and momentum, it grows my energy and momentum instead of using it up. It's kind of like getting some money and instead of just spending it on bills right away, it's good to invest it and let it multiple first before spending it on things I need to. 

I have to say I'm also starting to really understand my cycle - which days to expect what. Now comes the trial and error of trying out different things. Right now, I kind of now when my peak energy days will be and when it I'll drop. My new plan is to allow myself to skip a day here and there when I'm in my high energy period, and then get some momentum going for when the energy drops.  M working up my schedule for gym visits. For this month and next and will test it out and report back. 

In other news, I finished a book today- one down for this month and one to go. I'm almost done the book I read when I'm at the gym sometimes so I think this months target of reading two books will be good.

Also, strange thing happened today, I had turned on Netflix and saw a new show in my queue. It was a show that didn't just pop up randomly. When I'm abroad, I like to check out shows on Netflix that aren't in the US. Apparently I had put one in my queue when I was in Copenhagen and now Netflix negotiated the US rights and ta-da. It makes me wonder how many other shadow shows are in my queue that I don't know about. Especially after I cleaned out my Netflix list last week. I went from 100 down to 20. I think that's how I saw the new show. I wonder what my real number is. 

New Years Resolutions 2018

I never was one to have New Years resolutions, I was a bit snobby and figured if you wanted to change something you shouldn't wait for the first of the year. But then again I used to be a bit snobby about going to the gym and thought you should be getting exercise as a bi-product of other activities and interests in your life - like enjoying nature and hiking. 

Well, since I procrastinated enough last year that I finally ended up joining the gym at the beginning of the year like the masses and it ended up working out, I thought I'd revisit my ban on New Years resolutions. I mean, it is the mother of all resets, and that is my new core principle I have developed and seem to be the most consistent with. I keep finding new ways to reset throughout my day or with my habits or whatever it might be, to keep me from being in a rut. 

So without further ado, here are my top resolutions for the year:

1. Books. I was dropping off some books at my used bookstore the other day, as I continue on my quest to clean out and simplify my place. Except, I didn't leave empty handed. Even though I've run out of room to neatly tuck away any new books and have told myself, no more books. I just keep acquiring them. I mean they were free, since I had credit at the store, but that is the worst trap of acquiring more stuff - the free stuff. And since I haven't been commuting everyday which is where I got the majority of my reading done, my ratio of books coming in to books being read is getting terribly lopsided. Also, I remember being struck by what Marie Kondo said about books in her famous book about tidying up. That the time to read the book is when you first get it and if you don't read it then it's not likely you read it ever. I thought, that can't be right. But then again, I seem to be proving her right as I continue to not read the books I already have. Basically, this is the long winded way to say that I want to see if I can prove this concept wrong, that for me, I do read books I acquired years ago. 

New Years Resolution: to finish two books a month - 24 by the end of the year. Pretty modest since I would average almost a book a week back in my commuting days - it would depend how bad traffic was. I've started getting into the habit of reading for a bit each morning when I wake up until 6 pm when I get up to feed the cats. So, so far so good. 

2. Cookbook Recipes.  Although I felt like I really cleaned out a bunch of stuff last year (or was it the year before), I still find myself revisiting what I decided to keep and ask, do I really need this/love this?  For my cookbooks, I decided to use a shelf in my pantry to store them which forced me to decide to let go of some of the cookbooks so that they could all fit on the one shelf. Although you can look up recipes so easily online, I find I still like cooking from cookbooks.  At least I like the idea, but am really using them. I was flipping through the cookbooks the other day, looking for a recipe and was reminded how many great recipes I had but hadn't tried. I've decided the book has to earn its keep to stay on the shelf.  It has to have several recipes I love and will keep revisiting. This is part of my grand plan of putting together play books for parts of my life to make things easier and less to remember/decide. 

The other category I'm counting in here is the folder of recipes I collected from magazines. I store it along side my cookbooks on th shelf. For awhile I had several subscriptions to magazines, including a cooking magazine. I'm really glad I stopped them as I don't miss them and it helped cut down on paper clutter. But I still have the remnants of them.  I've weeded the clippings, and organized them and catalogued them and even used a few of the recipes but not very often. Again, I realize there are some good recipes in the mix but also there a bunch that represent my fantasy self. As I've been getting better at recognizing aspirational goals that are more realistic, I'm able to cut out a bunch of stuff. 

New Years Resolution: this has two parts. Part one is the books.  I have to cook at least one recipe from each cookbook by year end and have identified at least three more recipes I want to try, else the cookbook goes. Part two is my collection of magazine recipes. I want to have a final folder of no more than ten recipes I want to try. And if in the future I see a recipe I want to try, I need to swap it out. Else it will just get lost in the pile and I'll forget about it. 

So far I've already been doing pretty well.  I took out a third of my cookbooks that I like but don't feel I've used that often (they all have such pretty pictures, what is it with pretty pictures and cookbooks) and as I was flipping through the pages, I found one cookbook on brunches I was already ready to let go of and included it in my box of books I brought to the store to sell. I have five others that are on the fence. I think I might try a few recipes and then let them go. One caveat I should add is that I'm going through my recipe folder of go to recipes and revisiting everything.  If I find a recipe that I will work into my cooking playbook, I'll make a note of it and keep it or a copy of it. So for some cookbooks that are on the fence, there is one recipe I like, but that's not enough of a reason to keep the whole book.  A photocopy will do just fine.  I also need to tackle my recipes on Pinterest, but want to set realistic goals and figured this would be a good first phase. 

I'm roughly planning on trying two new recipes each month from my cookbooks/recipes on file. 

3. Financials - small and cash diet. I've been trying out different things on the not spending side of things. I have to say that one positive of taking longer than I had planned finding my next job, is that I've really taken a super close look at spending and what I really need to buy. I love keeping track of things so year one I tracked my spending at the end of each month with my checking and credit card statements and categorized my spending into several main categories. All the categories but one were pretty consistent.  The one category that was all over the place was what I called "miscellaneous". Not that surprising. It basically was everything I didn't really need, plus a few essentials (toiletries, stamps, etc). My main categories are mortgage, utilities, entertainment (Internet, phone and Netflix only), groceries, car, cats and then everything else was miscellaneous. So last year I kept track of my miscellaneous and wrote every expense down.  A coffee meet up as a I networked, a new gym shirt, etc. I even kept track of all my cash spending.  It wasn't too hard since I had really cut down on my spending beyond the essentials, so not too much to write down.  But still enough to look at what I had spent all my money on and take stock. Mid-year, I went through everything and categorized my miscellaneous spending into three groups: essentials, wants that I would buy again, wants that I wouldn't buy again. Surprisingly I found my wants divided pretty much into half. Half the stuff I bought I didn't need to buy. It was a good learning experience on breaking decades old spending habits. I feel like I'm kicking my retail therapy habit much better than I am kicking my sugar habit. I had also tried to use cash for all my miscellaneous purchases and still used plastic for the main categories (groceries, gas, cats, etc). 

Anyways, for various reasons, I want to buck the trend everyone else is following, and actually use more cash and less plastic. They say it's easier to spend more with plastic which is probably true, but I don't think it will make that much of a difference, I may be wrong. I also like the idea of just changing things up which I find makes me see things differently. 

A second part is that I realize I can use my money to make a difference globally. I always was interested in ethical and responsible brands but felt overwhelmed trying to green all my purchases. But as you start buying less, it's less you have to consider and it's not as overwhelming. I'm frustrated with the capitalist democracy we have and want to make a difference. This last year I've moved away from buying stuff at large stores. I think I only went to whole foods twice last year (my go to grocery store) and instead visit a local farm/grocery for most of my food. I still have a ways to go, but the first part is where you are purchasing your stuff from. I want to limit giving my money to the large corporations and support smaller, local companies. This means limiting what I buy online. Hearing about how workers are treated at Amazon warehouses and what it takes to get you exactly what you want right away woke me up. I don't mind doing a little planning and don't need my paper towels delivered same day. Next phase will be looking at the products I buy. 

New Years Resolution:  Part one is to use cash for all purchases except autopay utilities and minimal online purchases (like airline tickets). Part two is to spend less than 10% of my expenses (excluding mortgage/utilities) from big corporations. Part three is to limit my online purchases to ten maximum throughout the year. I do need to go back over last year and see what my number was. If it was less than ten, I might reduce the number. 

Overall, I think they are pretty realistic resolutions and I've already done something in every category to test them out before putting them in writing. So hopefully the success rate will be good. I had many more ideas for ways to reset some of my habits, but I picked these because I think they will help me with my bigger goal of shifting my focus and time on things that will give me a richer and fuller life, no matter how big or small the step. 

Organizing my to-dos

I've been experimenting with different ways to get stuff done and keeping track of all my to do items. I was starting to feel like I was rewriting the same list or just felt so overwhelmed with how long my list could get that I just gave up making lists and figured if it's important I'll remember it. Not always true mind you. 

I came across the idea of the bullet journal and briefly tried it out but it was more work than I wanted. But I liked the structure of the journal, and specifically the idea of having an index to keep track of the different pages of content. 

About a week before thanksgiving, I went through my house and pulled all my random projects into one big pile in the living room. Everything from mending a sweater to my folder of figuring out my style/outfits to installing a new fire alarm to my knitting project. I also pulled my multiple lists together. It helped seeing everything together. Granted there were several things I didn't include - in situ projects (finish painting my bedroom) or large and heavy projects (sort through my boxes of papers from childhood to present or my yarn collection). 

What was helpful was I started seeing patterns and was able to group projects. I had my craft projects and enough material to warrant knitting and sewing to have their own separate lists. I had a pile of stuff I was doing because I was motivated by making others happy - in a good way (write personal thank you/birthday cards). I had a list of things to do to save/earn money (call my internet provider, post items on craigslist). And on and on. Then I took an old notebook from my use it or lose it pile which meant it wasn't precious, so I felt comfortable experimenting and not wasting a brand new notebook. And each page I wrote out what I was doing that day. Top of the page was my projects/to-dos I needed to do. They were top priority and I consider them a necessity. And the bottom half was a bunch of other stuff I wanted to get to but if I didn't it was ok. I planned out most of the week and tried to focus on categories for my future self, money related, time sensitive items (cook the chicken in the fridge before it goes bad) and a few items from the "others" list. 

It's still early days but it's made things lighter for me and I don't feel as daunted. I'm able to realize that some items I may never get to and when I copy the lists over I might drop some items and prioritize others. And, I just had a nice little boost today to keep up my momentum.  I had a call midday from an old college friend. She has always been so good at sending me birthday cards and I've not always reciprocated so figured I'd return the favor and have been sending her a series of cards these last few months. One, I'm using up my stationary collection that really was just sitting around and being too precious to use. And two, I knew she was going through probably one of the hardest parts of her life right now. We chatted and caught up and at the end she shared that the cards were just heaven sent and just what she needed in this most trying of times. And I didn't even realize to the full extent of what she was going through. She said she felt like I was her angel sending her love and support when she most needed it and that I somehow sensed it. Anyways. It just reminded me of the old saying, "the path to hell is paved with good intentions."  Which I didn't really understand until way into adulthood. I thought good intentions was a good thing. And then realized if they are never acted upon and no action to carry them out then it really is just nothing. Still don't get why you would go to hell for something like that but I digress. Earlier me would have known cards would be a good thing to send this year but would have never gotten around to executing the idea. It's a great reminder.

Wild beasts, groceries and Antique Roadshow

First off, this morning. I was baking away for the week and using brown sugar. After I was done I noticed I was getting low and thought, "man, I thought I had stocked up on brown sugar, that would have been a good thing to use my grocery coupons on the last two months."  And then an hour later, guess what I found in my mail - more grocery coupons for December. It's the same grocery store as last month that just opened up and is a bit far away, but not too bad. I'm not sure I'll use every weeks coupons, but think I'll make use of the $3 off $15 some more. 

Yesterday, I popped up to NH for an orienteering event. I wasn't sure what to wear as its getting quite brisk outside but even hiking up and down hills can make you overheat. Anyways, great crisp sunny day and I headed out with the first wave of folks also orienteering. As usual, the second control tripped me up - I went too far and over shot it. Well, to make it to the third control, there was no easy way to get there on trails so I went off trail, following, what we in the know call a "handrail" (look at me learning the lingo). I followed a stone wall, now overgrown with trees and shrubs, in the middle of the forest. As I passed under one tree I saw a strange pile of dirt in front of a hole at the base of a large tree in front of me. It wasn't natural and I was curious so I headed straight towards it to investigate and that's when I saw some movement inside the hole, and I made out a black furred beast that was moving around and pointing its rear at me. Yup, I sprinted away as quickly as possible as I'm 99% sure it was a skunk. I felt bad I disturbed its home and felt bad that there would be a bunch more people probably following the same handrail and disturbing the skunk again and again. 

As I was finishing up the course, I started picking up fallen pine branches from the ground. And by the time I got back had a big armful. And as I drove home, I noticed another big branch from a different kind of pine tree fallen on the ground. I had a quick argument in my head about stopping and ended up turning around and going back for the branch. Except the branch was bigger than I had thought (it didn't fit in my car). So I take my hand clipper (i came prepared for this outing) and started trimming off good boughs for my collection. There was a guy leaf blowing the front yard, a way back from the street and came over to check I was ok and not broken down. When he saw what I was doing he went and got bigger loppers and helped me. How nice, right?  Now I have a pile of branches in my living room I need to figure out how to decorate with. 

And finally, I've slowly been cranking through projects - one of which is finally getting around to selling stuff I want to let go of but think I can get some money. I reached out to a local company that sells mid century furniture to see if they would be interested in my Thaden Jordan bent plywood dining set. Looks like they are interested and want to know how much I want. I figured I'd do a little research, and look what I found. One of the chairs was on the Antique Roadshow.  And just one chair goes for at least $800. Not sure how this translates to real life prices. But needless to say, I'll hopefully recoup my initial cost buying and shipping the set. I had a momentary pause about selling the set but reminded myself that although beautiful, by letting go of the set, I open up space (physically and figuratively) to let even better things come into my life. 

Grocery Run

For me I find coupons bring more stress then they are worth. I've been collecting old newspapers from dad for a spring time attempt to block weeds and came across the Sunday insert of coupons.  I ended up using one for contact solution. A different brand than I use but it was $1 off. Well, I fell for the marketing trick - using a coupon to get customers to try a new product. Strike one. But then, on top of all that, I don't know what it is, but I've gotten an eye infection two different times this fall. I finally figured out it was the contact solution and switched back to my tried and true and no problem. Strike two. So now, I'm back to my rule of only using coupons on a brand I like and that I need. I can't tell me how many toothpaste coupons I come across but I don't need any more tubes. 

My other rule is to only use coupons that are for a store and not a product. My local ace sends me monthly $7 off $25 purchase, so I stock up on those for when I need something. And that was about it until this fall. October I got a promotional sheet of coupons from a grocery store down the street. I think they're trying to keep up with whole foods since this was the first time I ever saw this promotion. Anyways, it's the kind where you get four columns of coupons for each week of the month for $7 off $25 purchase and then $1 off different departments. So $9 off each week. I had trouble finding stuff to buy by the end since I had stocked up my pantry and wasn't wild about their produce - I like buying local, in season produce. Anyways, final week I felt good that I saved good money about $25 without buying anything I wouldn't normally buy and fits in with my new approach to eating - buying single ingredient foods (mostly).

And then, a few days later, wham, in my mail was another mailer for a new grocery store next town over.  Another set of four weeks of coupons for November. I didn't think I'd use them all, skip a week or two. Well, I ended up using them all (not the meat or bakery coupon). And just finished using my last set yesterday, saving about $25 again. 

I'm all stocked up on dry goods and onions and dish detergents and everything. And wham, guess what I got today?  Yup, another promotional deal for groceries - single coupon for $35 off your first purchase. This time it was at my gym.  They were having an open house with a bunch of different tables. I almost skipped them but ended up chatting with one group, "Farmers To You" which is just up my ally. It's a small organization in its early days but it's basically like your online grocery delivery, like pea pod or other similar companies. Except this one is a partnership with small Vermont farmers. Great story revitalizing the dying art of farming in New England. Lots of great stuff, but a bit pricey for my budget. However, as I start buying less and less and really just the necessities, I don't feel as overwhelmed focusing on environmentally and socially responsible purchases. Especially with food that you are consuming. Local is always so much better and New England has such great biodiversity in its farming. Tons of options. Anyways, looks like I'll be shopping for December foods with my latest coupon. I'm curious if three is it or will I get another monthly coupon promotion in January.